Download the full transcript PDF.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:05] You are listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. We believe hosting with heart is at the core of every short-term rental. With Annette’s background in business operation–
Annette Grant: [00:00:14] And Sarah’s extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, we have welcomed thousands of guests from over 30 countries, earning us over $1,000,000 and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:28] We love sharing creative ways for your listing to stand out, serve your guests, and be profitable. Each episode, we will have knowledgeable guests who bring value to the short-term rental industry–
Annette Grant: [00:00:39] Or we will share our stories of our own experiences so you can implement actual improvements to your rentals. Whether you’re experienced, new, or nervous to start your own short-term rental, we promise you’ll feel right at home. Before we dive into the content, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:01] Hello. Welcome back for another great week. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:01:04] I am Annette Grant and together we are–
Both Annette & Sarah: [00:01:06] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:08] And we are going to kick off this episode like we do every week, and that’s sharing one of you, our amazing listeners who’s using our hashtag #STRShareSunday. Why Sunday? Because back in the day we thought that was a brilliant hashtag name. And on Sundays, we would share you on Instagram, and all these years later we’re still doing it. So we will share you here in the podcast, our email list, on Instagram, all the places. Annette, who are we sharing this week?
Annette Grant: [00:01:31] This week we are sharing @great_harbor_getaway. Again, that’s @great_harbor_getaway and it’s hosted by Jen and Tim and they are actually members in our membership. Hey, what’s up? But one thing I really want to highlight that I absolutely love that Jen did on her Instagram is she did a reel and it was all about how to shuck an oyster.
They are in Martha’s Vineyard, and I’ve just never really seen a food tutorial on someone’s short-term rental page, and I absolutely love it because if there is something a cuisine that is native to your area that people might be enjoying, that maybe they go out to eat for, they’re going to be enjoying it in your home. She does this tutorial and what I love is, number one, obviously, she’s highlighting her area and a cuisine that could be there, but she’s also highlighting a local oyster company where they could buy them.
And then just doing that tutorials like, “Hey, we’re on vacation. Normally we would go out. What if we do try to eat these and buy them from the local vendor?” And the thing that I also love about it is getting really to connect and see who Jen is and just a little bit of her personality and who she is as a host and her sharing this amazing town with her guests. So I thought food tutorials, genius–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:02:52] So smart.
Annette Grant: [00:02:52] And like that’s such an easy thing if you have a blog or you have YouTube, or maybe your personal social media, it’s a way that you could double in and really use that piece of content multiple places. So kudos to Jen. I just thought that was such a great idea. And then another one, Jen, just because we’re watching you, she also did some cleaning reels and so I think that’s really great. The visitors can see, your guest can see that you are in there. She’s in there with a–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:18] Magic eraser.
Annette Grant: [00:03:19] Magic eraser getting into the details and as a fellow host, I love that. When I was a guest there, I’d be like, yep, she knows, she pays attention to detail. So two things that she did there, a cleaning tutorial and a cooking tutorial. I just thought it was great. So let’s get on to the show. Great job @great_harbor_getaway. Go give Jen some love on a reel.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:38] Woo! All right. And with that, we are going to hop into our episode. And Annette, you have yet another SK to add to your list of friends.
Annette Grant: [00:03:49] Oh, my gosh. I do.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:50] You have so many. You have Sarah Karakaian, you have–
Annette Grant: [00:03:52] Sean Chemicroff and now–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:53] Avie.
Annette Grant: [00:03:55] Oh, Keegan?
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:56] Yeah, and now we have Sarah King who has pivoted from the world of Dave Ramsey and long-term rentals into the world of leverage and mid-term rentals, furnished rentals. Sarah has been investing for five years and rebuilt her whole portfolio back from zero up to 13 units after divorce, all with a three-year-old in tow while working a full-time job. Hey, inspirational. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah King: [00:04:24] Hey, ladies, I’m a huge fan of yours, so I’m very excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Annette Grant: [00:04:28] And listeners, we’ll let you know right now. Please give Sarah a follow on social media. Go to @nerdsguidetofi. She shows up there, she does a fantastic job, and she’s pretty much our neighbor.
Sarah King: [00:04:43] Yeah, I know.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:04:43] You’re not too far so–
Annette Grant: [00:04:45] You’re going to have to [inaudible].
Sarah Karakaian: [00:04:46] Sarah, I’ve got family in New Haven, which I know is right next to Fort Wainwright.
Sarah King: [00:04:51] It is. I have family in New Haven, actually.
Annette Grant: [00:04:54] Maybe you guys are family. Should you do DNA or whatever 23andMe? Hey, isn’t in Fort Wayne where that whole 23andMe thing went down? I watched that like [inaudible] yeah, there was a doc.
Sarah King: [00:05:06] So my day job is genetics. So you’re like near and dear to my heart. I know an exorbitant amount about ancestry testing and how to solve crimes and things.
Annette Grant: [00:05:17] Well, that’ll be a whole ‘nother. Sarah and I will start. Oh, we should start a true crime resort. I don’t want to start that, though.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:05:24] No?
Annette Grant: [00:05:25] No true crime and short-term rentals. No, I don’t want to. All right. Well, Sarah, take us through your story. You’re doing the Dave Ramsey thing, which we’re not hating on that at all. Everything works for every person. But talk to us about Dave Ramsey, the long-term, we love that in your intro to leverage in midterm and also where you are located and how this is working into your portfolio. So just take us back how you are doing all of these things.
Sarah King: [00:05:49] Yeah. So I think where I want to start here, so I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so Midwest, which is a fantastic real estate market. It just happen to be in my backyard. But it really didn’t start out with this real estate passion. It really started out with getting financially savvy. I just remember I was really good at checking boxes. I feel like I schooled for a very long time, so I have like a couple of master’s degrees in school for a long time, teaches you to be a professional box checker where you’re like, I’m really good at exams and so you graduate college and you graduate grad school and you check those boxes off your list and then you move home and then you get married and then you have a bunch of debt.
And no one tells you about that part because you have a new job and then you have to get a new car with that. And then I remember we both had new jobs and we both had new cars and we were newly married and we had over $100,000 in debt. And I was just suffocating and I was trying to live a lifestyle that I thought was the American dream. But it was pretty terrifying to see all of your hard-earned money going to bills and not having really anything left over. And after an emergency or two happens, you’re like, “Well, this is terrible.”
And so it just compounds. And so I had a friend of mine directed me to Dave Ramsey. So people don’t know that, he’s like the debt payoff guru and he has a lot of radical ideas. He makes a lot of people very mad. People either love him or hate him. Probably more in the hate camp now than ever.
Annette Grant: [00:07:13] He’s definitely polarizing.
Sarah King: [00:07:15] Yeah, he’s definitely polarizing. But I will say he serves a good purpose to figure out how to work through your debt and just to get your basic finances in order and teaches you the basics of insurance and different things like that, life skills you probably should have had when you graduated at some point and never got them. And then once I went through that whole process, I had about a 50% savings rate and then I was pretty easy at that point.
Once you work through his process and things, and I didn’t ever want to go back to spending that much money again. And so it’s figuring out what to do next. And by that time, I decided to read a few different books and I first discovered the Bigger Pockets area. So they’re the real estate gurus. But honestly, they were a little terrifying to me because they just talked about leverage and people wanting hundreds of units. And I’m like, I can barely manage my own home, let alone 100 of them. Like, dear Lord, that sounds terrible. What’s going to happen?
I was really afraid because I had no handyman skills. And so I started out financial independence and got really nerdy into bloggers and people doing that and then found this blogger called Paula Pant. I don’t know if you guys ever heard her.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:08:25] We know Paula. Yeah.
Sarah King: [00:08:26] Yeah. So she does afford anything. She’s an amazing podcaster, this brilliant journalist. And so she did real estate and wasn’t handy and did a lot of it from afar and would just pick these markets and research them. And she’s like, we all have the skill set we need to build real estate. And so I was like, okay, I can do this.
And so then I was married and the nice thing was my husband was handy, and so he was the handyman. And as we got from the beginning, there’s a divorce period in here. So I ended up having a daughter. So we had our daughter, she was about three months old, and my husband started having addiction issues and it spiraled pretty bad where he got into pretty unsavory things.
And I ended up leaving that to get my daughter out of that situation. And so I remember distinctly like love mom and dad, like calling them, being like, I’m 32 years old and I’m going to move in with a nine-month-old. “Hey, how’s it going?” But they had been watching the situation and were very grateful. I reached out to them and my family wrapped their arms around us and got us safe and moved and everything. And so just restarting.
And so through the divorce process, we ended up selling all of our property just because that was easier. It was really hard to have to make a lot of decisions with someone whose decision-making wasn’t sound at the time. And so we decided, let’s just liquidate everything. It’ll be easier, and then each have money to do what we want to do with. And so we had five properties by the time we got divorced, sold everything. It was in 2020, which was amazingly the peak of the market. So we did really well actually selling all of our properties–
Annette Grant: [00:10:06] So there was a little silver lining.
Sarah King: [00:10:08] There was a huge silver lining. Yeah, I have an amazing daughter. I had a really good strong financial background and I had a really amazing family that really was there for me. But I was a hot mess. There was a period of time where I cried every single day and it was pretty terrible.
But it was such a good experience because I feel like nothing in real estate will scare you anymore. No foundation scares me anymore because I’m like, I’ve been divorced. Nothing’s going to be as bad as what I’ve already gone through. So no house project scares me much to most people’s dismay. I’m like, “Oh, it’ll be fine.” Someone knows–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:10:40] How to figure it out.
Sarah King: [00:10:43] So it teaches you to problem-solve. And then I started house hacking first, which I don’t know if your readers know what that is, but essentially you buy. I bought a single-family home with a walkout basement. And so in Indiana, that’s decently common if your house on a hill, you have a walkout basement. I converted the basement into a second unit, so I’d have it up and down duplex. And I house-hacked that and that was the first time I used private money to purchase a property, which is pretty cool.
And so I did that about three months after moving out because I’m like, I love my family, but I feel terrible living with them and a less than one-year-old and so I actually closed in my first property, that was just mine on her first birthday, which is pretty cool. So they asked when I want to close in the week and I’m like, oh, her birthday. I could do that in the morning while she’s with her aunt. And then when we have a birthday party, we can go back and check out the house and stuff. So it was really special.
Annette Grant: [00:11:34] When you were house hacking, was that a short-term rental, or was that a long-term rental?
Sarah King: [00:11:38] It was long-term to start out. But I really didn’t know anything better at the time. And at the time I was debating if I wanted to do the furnished rentals and if I wanted to get into shorter midterms or if I wanted to keep it long-term. And I think I knew the long-term really well. Now it’s a hybrid actually. So that house I’ve moved out of since. And so the top is a mid-term, I would say. I have a minimum 28-day stay and then the bottom is a long-term tenant still.
Annette Grant: [00:12:05] Got you.
Sarah King: [00:12:06] And the really cool thing that tenants in the bottom of that house are actually tenants. We had to sell their house and I moved them with me into my house hack when I moved. We had to sell our whole portfolio. My first tenants I’ve ever placed that are still with me in my old house hack.
Annette Grant: [00:12:22] Oh, nice. So you could transition some of them. You knew there were–
Sarah King: [00:12:26] So I transition people that I really liked. “And I know you guys aren’t in a place to buy. We have to sell your house. But I have this lovely walkout basement that I just remodeled if that interest you,” and that was pretty cool to be able to help them out.
Annette Grant: [00:12:36] Wonderful.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:12:37] I know our listeners are going to wonder, talk to us about the private money deal that you did with this house. How did that work out?
Sarah King: [00:12:43] So the first few times I’ve used private money, I went to friends and family first. So the first two pitches I ever did were to family members. And the first time I felt like I had to do it because I’m afraid I’m getting divorced and I don’t want my house to be part of this and my lawyer has reassured me that it wouldn’t be. However, I just don’t want any ties here. I’ll refinance in a year, I have really good credit, no reason to worry about that. I have good employment and I’m bankable.
I just don’t want it in my own name today. I just don’t feel comfortable with it. And I just want our future to be safe and secure. And I was just really looking for a sense of security in a very uncertain time, and so they bought the house cash and then I refinanced from them after a year.
Annette Grant: [00:13:31] Nice, okay. Brilliant.
Sarah King: [00:13:33] And I actually made $1,000 at closing, which I didn’t think was possible. And that’s the best closing cheque I’ve ever received because I was like, I can do this. This is pretty cool. So it appraised for just a little bit higher. The big thing was, I had put all this work into remodeling it and so paying back all of theirs without needing extra down payment money was a big deal. So it was pretty nice.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:13:55] Yeah, that’s huge.
Annette Grant: [00:13:55] Wow.
Sarah King: [00:13:56] That was a lot.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:13:57] No, but I think in the face of adversity like that, it’s really admirable for you to boss up. That’s the word I want to use. Just like, say, I have to figure this out. And we can go in some directions when we’re feeling insecure in what’s going on in our personal lives. So how did you dig deep? Was it your daughter? How did you find the strength to, I don’t know, problem-solve at such a volatile time in life?
Sarah King: [00:14:21] It was definitely her because I was pretty much a hot mess as a person at that time. It was I wanted to have her have a good foundation and I think a lot of the driving force I’ve always thought it was a two-income household and that’s what I had come from. And you just expect to have this partner in life. And to lose your partner and have them become a total stranger to you is a really horrifying thing.
And so I just wanted the stability of having an extra income. And so that’s when I started going into real estate harder was just wanting to have stability because I didn’t want her to ever have to go through like– she was so young when it all happened. I’m like, I don’t want her to see like mom ever not have a house or not have stability. And so I’m going to build out a second job for myself so I’m always secure.
There’s that like Cher quote, I think out there where it’s like, “Mom, I am my own rich husband.” That’s the driving mantra behind the craziness that’s been the last year and a half of just going all the way into real estate is just to have a business that is totally mine. I’m not really reliant on like if I get laid off from my job, I would be okay right now. And a year ago I couldn’t say that. And that’s pretty cool.
Annette Grant: [00:15:31] So let’s talk about just Instagram in general and your handle @nerdsguidetofi. Were you doing your social media prior to this kind of unraveling, if you don’t mind me call that?
Sarah King: [00:15:45] Yeah, totally. It is all out there.
Annette Grant: [00:15:49] Okay. And I appreciate you being honest because the Nerds Guide to FI, were you trying to do that alongside your husband in the beginning just to reach the financial independence together and then it was like this recalibration?
Sarah King: [00:16:00] Yeah. So originally when we did Dave Ramsey things, we even did the courses together, but I think I was more dragging him through the process. I’m very type-A. He is not a very type-A, poor guy, but he was the classic, supportive husband I think in that situation where one person is super into it and the other one’s like, okay, I’ll come with you. And so we went through that and got into that.
But then the financial independence piece he wasn’t that interested in, but by then we established like, I’m just the nerd, and I managed the spreadsheets and the budgets, and he was good with that. And so honestly, it was pretty easy. But I would say 99% of it was probably me driving through it and him being okay with that. But I also waitress on the side to pay off debt, and he was not really interested in taking side jobs and things.
But at one point he sold a truck and stuff. So we were both in it in the beginning. But definitely by the end, once I got in the financial independence side, yeah, I was just more super saving and doing our investments and strategized around that. But I really diving into real estate, he was more interested in that originally than I was. And then in the end he wasn’t interested in it at all anymore. All of his interests changed. And then I’m meeting contractors and furnace guys and I’m like, I shouldn’t be going to these appointments–
Annette Grant: [00:17:14] You really should wait. Let’s see.
Sarah King: [00:17:16] Exactly.
Annette Grant: [00:17:16] I will actually, roll-reverse that like it is 2023. So now we can show up and do all of the things and all the appointments with all the people.
Sarah King: [00:17:26] I’d like to come back and kick my ass for thinking that previously because now I do all those things. I love it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:17:31] I know what you mean though too. It’s like during a renovation for Nick and I, my husband and I are like, there are things that usually he heads up and there are things where I feel more comfortable, but we both will have this conversation, like, that was a really painful conversation we have with that contractor. But I understand X, Y, Z so much more now because I got out of my comfort zone. I had those conversations.
So Sarah, anyone listening right now who hasn’t gotten into real estate yet, no matter how they’re leveraging their property short, mid, or long, any tips on how to show up and meet the furnace person or meet the plumber and have a conversation where you feel like you’re in control of the situation, where you’re the client. What’s worked for you since you started to do this on your own?
Sarah King: [00:18:11] Honestly, at first, I feel like I didn’t do a great job at this and now I do better. But I also think in the future life I could probably be a general contractor. I enjoy it that much where I would thrive in that. I like having subs and keeping them going and managing properties and managing a renovation.
Annette Grant: [00:18:27] You better be careful, people are going to be reaching out to you to be their GC.
Sarah King: [00:18:32] I GC my own projects. It’s like the blind leading the blind some days.
Annette Grant: [00:18:38] Nerds Guide to GC.
Sarah King: [00:18:39] So I love it. But I think just meeting them and being honest, I really like a good handshake. But I will still show up in UGG boots and they all are like, “What are you doing?” And I’ve gotten out of the car and some of the guys know me now and some of them don’t, and they’ll be like, “She knows what she’s doing. Calm down, Joe.” or something like that, because I’m like five-three and come in and hugs and they’re scared, but now they’re all afraid of me, which is hilarious.
Annette Grant: [00:19:02] They have a healthy fear of you now.
Sarah King: [00:19:04] They have a healthy fear. We have a very good relationship. You just don’t want to see me upset, which doesn’t happen that often. I’m pretty good until I’m not. But it takes a long time to get there. But I think walking into projects and just saying, this is the house, let me show you around, and then just educating yourself. That’s how I went about it, where I’m like, my expertise is not like you do HVAC for a living, and that’s amazing. I will never be that contractor, but I would like to walk through with you and learn so I can ask better questions.
And you will find people that love that or hate that. And if they hate that and are weird or talk down to you because you get those two when you’re a lady in real estate, then we just don’t work together anymore. And you don’t get to call back. We don’t work together, but it’s the guys that will spend time with me and answer my phone calls and answer my questions. That’s how you start to learn because there’s no other way really than on-the-job training to really do this unless your family was handy.
I tell this on like every podcast, my mom hates it, where I say, like growing up, my dad hired out our light bulbs changed, but he did it really high up in the area to get a big ladder. I get it’s inconvenient, but that’s my level of commitment. My dad would hire stuff out and I still do most of the hiring out now.
But I’ve walked with the contractors through the project and I know enough to manage it now. Taught myself to drywall, taught myself a lot of things you never thought you would be doing at a project because you have to get it done. So it’s an adventure.
Annette Grant: [00:20:28] Because I know all of your listings right now– and you can walk us through your properties– they are all on Airbnb, but they are at 28-day minimum stays. Is that how you’re listing all of them?
Sarah King: [00:20:40] That is how four of them are listed, or five. Five of them are listed that way. I currently have 14 units, so only five of them are listed in that way.
Annette Grant: [00:20:50] Okay. Talk us through the decision to pivot and have five of the 14 be the mid-term rentals. And then how are you handling inquiries on Airbnb? How often you’re getting, what type of person. So if you can walk us–
Sarah King: [00:21:03] Yeah, I’ve used to long-term rentals. That’s what I had done with my ex-husband and that’s where I started picking things back up again. But then I was like, oh my gosh, the cash flow on these is forever. If my goal is to have some freedom in my job, it will take me 1,000 years. Would this be a good cash flow on a long-term rental is $200 a door?
It’s going to take a really long time to figure that out. And I’m a sucker. I love interior design, but I also know you have to make smart financial choices. And that’s the fun part for me. I like going into houses and choosing finishes and things, I like treating my guests well and impressing them with how quickly I get things done.
My long-term people, I like to keep them surprised by like if they have an appliance issue, the guy is there that day or the next day and if not, they have an explanation as to why. And so I really like customer service and I think we lack customer service, especially in the rural markets where I started. In very rural Indiana, there wasn’t a lot of pride in ownership and so I think that led me in this general direction of being interested in hosting because I could do a bit more renovations but still provide a need of the working class individual, like the average Joe, like the professional coming into town, the Masons, the Amazon factory worker is like lots of traveling nurses.
I like the working professional niche and I think I carried it that over from my long terms into where I pivoted to now. And I think eventually maybe I’ll hop to STRs, but right now this is my evolution as we walk through.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:22:35] That was my question is so many people do STRs and then back into MTR. So for you, you look let’s just lessen a lease to 28-plus day stays as a first step. So if you’re listening and you’re a long-term landlord, mid-term rentals might be a great segue and you might not ever have to go to short-term rental. So talk to us about your numbers. I know that we’ve had some people on the show who say if their mid-term rentals don’t get them at least a thousand bucks a month they are not interested. Do you have hard and fast rules like that?
Sarah King: [00:23:05] I don’t. I still run my numbers like a long-term rental and so they have to be 1% rule or better houses. Some people love that rule. Some people hate that rule.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:23:13] Can you explain that rule for our listeners? What is the 1% rule for you?
Sarah King: [00:23:16] Oh yeah. So 1% rule says 1% of your purchase price plus renovation costs, which people miss that little detail should be your rent. And so if you bought a house for $80,000, put 20,000 in 100K all in, let’s say very easy round numbers, that house needs to rent for $1,000 a month or better. Usually, I get 1.2 to 1.3%. If it’s $100,000 house, I want it to rent for $1,300 or more. And so as long as it meets that basic criteria, then now it’s become a bit more of a gut instinct on neighborhoods as to what you do with something.
It also depends on how much time I have at the time and how much I want to outsource things to other people and how much money. So it’s this little weird, tricky Venn diagram that I wish was more scientific, but a lot of times it’s like I’m sick of assembling furniture and I don’t have enough money to pay someone to do it.
Annette Grant: [00:24:05] No, I think you’re being honest about the things that don’t fit in the spreadsheet.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:11] Which is your life.
Sarah King: [00:24:11] Because I have huge spreadsheets. I’m a huge spreadsheet nerd. I’ve run the numbers 27 different ways, but then it comes down to a little more emotional than that, usually.
Annette Grant: [00:24:22] Absolutely.
Sarah King: [00:24:22] To be very honest. Yeah.
Annette Grant: [00:24:24] And you mentioned in that description the neighborhood. You know the neighborhood. We know here in our market. You can run the numbers all day long on all the neighborhoods all around and there are some areas that should not be short-term rentals, all spectrums of why they shouldn’t be.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:40] The neighbors don’t want it and the guests don’t want it. But I love how you’re factoring in your life too. I don’t feel like it’s something furniture right now and the budget doesn’t call for a TaskRabbit person. So I guess we’re doing long-term. Do you know what I mean? There’s nothing wrong with that.
Sarah King: [00:24:52] Yeah. I have a three-bedroom right now that I’m renovating, and it was a really big toss-up because the neighborhood’s pretty good, but I’m going to try to put the long-term rent high and see if I get it. And then if I don’t, I’m going to furnish it. That is my new test.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:06] How long would you wait before you make the decision to midterm rent it?
Sarah King: [00:25:09] Probably two months.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:11] Okay. So you let it sit for two months. Is that in your calculations, like two months of vacancy or?
Sarah King: [00:25:17] I hate letting things sit, and one month seems too short. It’s again, like a gut instinct, but I have the cash flow to support it sitting that long. So I first start paying the mortgage in February. So my goal’s renovations have to be done before I start paying the mortgage. And so that’s how quickly I like to go into a project. But that’s my buy box. I’ve narrowed down that a lot now.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:36] Explain what a buy box is.
Sarah King: [00:25:38] So my buy box is your criteria for when you purchase a house. So investors are my realtor. I’m not a realtor at all. So when my realtor or wholesalers send me properties, there’s a very specific thing I’m looking for. And it depends. Different zip codes have different ones. But overall, I tell everyone my buy box is Grandma’s house.
I would like a ranch-style home. Very easy. If I don’t have a lot of stairs, that’s fine. If I can find a side-by-side duplex, that’s the number one thing, because it’s really easy to minimize vacancy in that. People like feeling like they’re still a homeowner, even though you’ve connected to another house.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:26:13] A thousand percent.
Sarah King: [00:26:13] But I like a heavy cosmetic. I want to go in and do the floors. I want to go in and paint every wall. I might want to paint the cabinets. I want new hardware and new light fixtures. I don’t want to move walls. And if I have to drywall, I get annoyed because that takes time and it’s so dusty and then it’s just a lot adding to the process. But I can do drywall repair, but I’m not going to move walls around or anything.
Annette Grant: [00:26:35] I love that.
Sarah King: [00:26:36] So heavy cosmetic of grandma so everyone can picture the ’70s quintessential house where it’s like the bathtub is avocado green, they loved butterfly wallpaper. There’s a dolphin mural in the living room. People walk in and go, this carpet is hideous. And I’m like, this is great because all I care about is I’m going to paint the whole thing and rip all the floors and put in vinyl plank because it’s about minimizing cost to turnover.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:26:57] But the bones are good. You like the bones.
Sarah King: [00:26:59] The bones are solid. I love good bones. I don’t want to have to move anything around because that’s just a lot more expenses and it’s easier to find good painters and good people that can lay a vinyl plank floor pretty easy. And then during the summer and when the market was so hot, it was just really hard getting contractors that were good at drywall. And so that’s where I leaned into that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:27:20] I’ll find you some really good drywall out in Fort Winks. It sounds like they are a thorn in your side.
Sarah King: [00:27:25] They are. I finally found one. So no more projects[Interposing voices] But yeah, baby steps.
Annette Grant: [00:27:31] So with the mid-term rentals right now, what is the success? How is it going? Are you finding a lot of leads on Airbnb and what’s the longest midterm that you’ve had? How have you been with that?
Sarah King: [00:27:41] Yeah, so with my midterms, summer was like gangbusters. So I’ve also launched five midterms since May. So it’s been a little crazy around here. Three of them are one bedroom, one bathroom unit because I was really targeting a travel nurse. And when that route be it’ll likely be a single professional.
I have a two-bedroom, which I love, and for some reason that one rents out way easier. I think people like a little bit extra space and it usually runs out to single individuals or couples. I don’t quite know what they’re doing with the extra bedroom. Maybe putting their pet in there.
Annette Grant: [00:28:10] Or work from home, one of them work from home.
Sarah King: [00:28:12] Yeah. Wanting like an office.
Annette Grant: [00:28:13] For sure.
Sarah King: [00:28:14] And so that second bedroom has been a huge hit. And so now I think if I was going to buy more, I don’t want any one bedroom anymore. And then I’m trying out a three-bedroom in the next couple of months. So we’ll see how that goes. I have one three-bedroom, but it’s my old house hack and I just actually converted someone off of Airbnb onto a year lease, which is awesome.
Annette Grant: [00:28:34] Oh, give us that. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that exact scenario. Can you give us that?
Sarah King: [00:28:39] This one is interesting. So apparently this is the house of divorce. So this is my OG house that I bought right after my divorce. And then this lady was looking for a place to live. She had to move and they ended up putting all their house stuff in storage units. And then she can’t go get it because it’s still in escrow with the divorce. And so she was looking for a furnished space in this town or this general area.
And so her and her two kids moved in. I think they’re 11 and 12. They needed to be in that school system. So that’s something else I’m learning. It seems more than three bedrooms tend to be very geography specific when they have kids involved. I don’t know if that’s a midwest thing or not, but I like it.
Annette Grant: [00:29:16] Probably more than that. But yeah, I’m sure that’s around the country.
Sarah King: [00:29:20] So they found me an Airbnb. She was super excited. And so she booked for two months and then she messaged me and said, I might book longer. And then once you have a booking off of Airbnb, which you guys love, you see like non-Airbnb-based booking, which I’m trying to figure out how to build that out, which means I need to listen to your podcast more.
So essentially when we’re able to message each other, I ask her some questions like, “Do you want your door key to certain way? Do you have a preference?” So we ended up texting each other because once you have a booking and you’re confirmed and she’s moved in, you get their number. So then we started chatting on the side about some other things like just mail logistics. She had a lot of questions.
And so I told her, “Here’s my number.” The previous people before then broke the garbage disposal. So I got her number for my handyman to come in and replace her garbage disposal and things. And so I said, I think I can still get the amount of income I need and save you money if you can book through me directly. And so I ended up saving her, I think, $400 a month. And then I’m making the same amount for a year lease. And so I have a whole process set up with like avail.co if you’ve ever heard of them. They’re my online leasing platform. And so I set her up like a long-term tenant in there.
So she had her two-month stay at Airbnb. They got like a baby cut of the deal and then I get the next year. So pretty exciting. But I’m sure there are taboos that I don’t know about, but it worked out.
Annette Grant: [00:30:44] No. I wanted to offer to our listeners, this is a very common reason, especially if it’s a guest wanting to stay and they’re from your town. I think especially here in Columbus, you will have a lot of guests that are going through the same scenario because a hotel isn’t where they want to stay.
Sarah King: [00:31:02] You don’t want to have your kids in a hotel room.
Annette Grant: [00:31:03] And they’re trying to figure out like, what is that next chapter that most likely have the funds to do this? It’s just there’s a lot of things that are in limbo. And so, listeners, this is one of the things that if you’re direct booking or you’re doing some just networking, these are the opportunities reaching out to certain attorneys, law offices. This is one of those common guests in markets and then also with people moving for jobs. These are the two things that they’re ready. They have the funds. They’ll be great guests. It’s just like they probably they’re not signing long-term leases.
But I think it’s absolutely a very common thing that happens. And you’re serving her really well. That’s a win-win situation there. And Airbnb got their cut for two months and everybody else got to win also. So I love that.
Sarah King: [00:31:50] Just like you need to help out this bomb. And also in the language of my lease, I try to make it really specific where I’m not going to hold you in a lease if you don’t want to be there. So I’m like, I love a year lease just for a commitment and planning. But I told her, I’m like, if you give me two months notice, you can get your deposit back and you can move away. I’m good with that.
You can break it two months if you give me 60 days to prep it, turn it, get new people in. If it’s 30 days in advance, you can break the lease then and I’ll let you out and not do anything. But I’m going to keep your security deposit.
Annette Grant: [00:32:22] I like that.
Sarah King: [00:32:22] And so it gives them some options because I feel like in the divorce situation, you’re just afraid to get nailed down with anything because you have no idea what life is going to be. So she thought that was helpful in that scenario.
Annette Grant: [00:32:22] For sure.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:32] But again, that’s your customer service coming in, where you’re meeting them where they’re at, instead of just like there is a time and a place to be hard and fast business owner with your rules so that you can be the mom that you need to be and build the life that you need to build for you and your daughter in terms of expected revenue through your rentals. But if it’s really not going to hurt your bottom line to meet this person where they’re at, especially since you’ve been there and you understand what she’s going through.
Sarah King: [00:32:56] Yeah, exactly.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:56] I have a question for you. As someone who– I got into real estate and went right to short-term rentals. I’ve only ever had long-term tenants because we inherited them. And then I quickly– not because I’m like, oh, honestly, it wasn’t necessarily because we were made more money. I just didn’t know how to handle a long-term tenant. That’s not my area of expertise at all.
Sarah King: [00:33:17] Yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:33:18] So in our months here where it’s slow in Columbus in January, February, March, I am a licensed real estate agent and I am asking my broker all these questions about tenants because I have the fear of God in me in terms of squatters. So the question for you because our audience is mostly short-term rental listeners, but they dabble in mid-term and some of these mid-term rental experts say that they do a new lease every 30 days.
I find that to be jarring for my guest or for the person in the property. I don’t know that it’s necessary, but at the same time I’m in a lot of real estate Facebook groups and they talk about these evictions and getting people out, and it just sounds terrifying. So someone who came from long-term rentals into mid-term, what do you do to minimize any situation like that with your traveling professionals?
Sarah King: [00:34:10] Yeah, a lawyer if you lease. So if it’s Airbnb, which is where most of my listings come from, I let Airbnb handle it because you’re still on their platform and things. So honestly, I probably don’t know enough about squatting laws with Airbnb combined to officially answer that, but I have done some of Furnished Finder as well. And then this lady to where my Furnished Finder folks that are three months or less and then they want to extend, I’ll put them on a lease, but I’ll give them the option to go month to month. And so I’ll just do extensions with an addendum in my leasing software.
So I’ll do a little bit of both. So I allow the lease to go month to month. So technically they are month-to-month clients and so legally they’d be treated that way in the state of Indiana. And so then it’s pretty easy to do the eviction process in Indiana because we don’t have a lot of rules here. So I can’t speak to other states because we’re definitely spoiled here in this state where you give a 30-day notice to move out a quit notice and you post it or you do certified mail and you go through those processes and it’s pretty easy.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:35:13] Have you had to evict someone yet in yours?
Sarah King: [00:35:15] I have not. I had a person get to their third warning of I will evict you and I had a lawyer drop the third warning and then they left on their own. I have had to remove a mid-term rental person from a property, but it was a placement through an insurance company. So it was an insurance claim and they replace people due to housing. They had their house burned down and they needed a place to stay.
And so she moved in, broke like five or six different rules in the lease. And then she ended up leaving after 26 days. But her insurance contract, her people, handled getting her out for me, which I was very grateful for because I didn’t want to have to go and get my own attorney. But the insurance company really didn’t want me doing that either and they said they would handle her and they did.
Annette Grant: [00:36:00] Okay. Well, I know everybody wants to know, can you share with us the rules that were broken? Because I know our listeners want to know what was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So can you go through those? What was happening and how you knew they were being broken?
Sarah King: [00:36:13] Yeah. So it was in my house, so I’m living upstairs.
Annette Grant: [00:36:17] Oh, my gosh. Okay, well, you’re onsite.
Sarah King: [00:36:20] So this is my first house and this is my first insurance claim ever. And I’m like, well, this is terrible, but I actually really like insurance claims. So I was upstairs with my daughter and she was in the downstairs unit, immediately moves her boyfriend and immediately brings a broken down car with them. He brought a dog for a day. I’m like, you can’t do that. My neighbor’s dog will eat your dog. He’s a jerk over there. It’s for your own dog’s safety, let alone there’s no pet policy here.
The biggest thing was they wouldn’t stop smoking. At first, they smoked cigarettes inside, and then they went to smoking marijuana inside. And then they went to smoking cigarettes outside of the patio. And I’m like, no, you can’t have it anywhere on the property. I will not have marijuana on-site at all. I’m going through this lovely legal battle as we speak over issues related to drug use.
And I’m like, I can’t be like, oh yeah, when I send my daughter off to her visit and she smells like marijuana, that’s not fine. So it was interesting. So lots of notices.
Annette Grant: [00:37:23] And would you– because I know our listeners are going to want to know this, you’re on site. Were you messaging her through the Airbnb app? Did all of this go through the insurance? Go through Airbnb, though?
Sarah King: [00:37:35] No. So this was a direct booking to me.
Annette Grant: [00:37:38] Okay. Got you. All right. So share with us, because I know this happens. Was it texting? Was it face-to-face or how were you documenting this?
Sarah King: [00:37:45] It was all email and I would cc her housing company.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:37:48] Got you. Good job.
Annette Grant: [00:37:49] Thank you. I know that our listeners are going to want to know how to communicate, “Hey, you’re breaking all the rules.”
Sarah Karakaian: [00:37:53] And Sarah–
Sarah King: [00:37:54] I try not to text if I can help it, but I’d rather it be in writing in some form. So if she’s not answering email, I would text her because I’d rather exactly what I said be written. And I’m really mindful about what all I say. And I also would attach her lease to it.
Annette Grant: [00:38:10] With, exactly the rule that was with it.
Sarah King: [00:38:13] And like nicely marked I guess like tastefully where I’m like, please see section number seven regarding, no marijuana use on the entire property, not just in the basement. And I appreciate because I think they were still smoking inside or vaping, but they would say they weren’t anymore. And I’m like, whatever it is, we’re still having a challenge with the smell, so it just needs to cease.
And so I sent, I think, three warnings about that and said, like, your boyfriend cannot live here. We need to add him to the lease. I need to do a background check on him. I did a background check you, but not the other adult. I require background checks on every adult living in my home. I’m sharing this hall. Me and my daughter live upstairs from you. I would like to know who we’re sharing the space with. And it also really creeped me out that he wouldn’t get a background check. So it just wasn’t–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:39:01] And Sarah, this is such– and listeners, this is– because I live in a state of fear when it comes to 20-plus day stays. No, but I’ve learned so much by asking my lawyer questions ad nauseam and my broker. But that’s the thing, is like whether you get them from an insurance claim, from a direct booking, from Airbnb, you still want to get them on a proper state-backed lease because you’re not wrong. Indiana is very different than other states and what the eviction process is like.
And so you might be in a state where it’s really tough to get a tenant out. And so maybe midterm stays aren’t a good fit for you if you’re not ready for those sorts of challenges. And again, I’m not a long-term landlord, so I don’t know how common this can be. But common or not common, we’re talking about lifestyle 10, 15 minutes ago. Is that something you want to be up against in those particular states?
Sarah King: [00:39:51] Yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:39:52] So, yeah, everything has its challenges. So don’t do something because you might face a challenge, but at the same time, it’s good to know what might happen and just be prepared. So the background checks, the leases, all that stuff, an attorney can help you dial that in.
Sarah King: [00:40:06] Yeah. I’ve also had a midterm guest destroy a property to and Airbnb did pick that up.
Annette Grant: [00:40:10] Oh, well, let’s do it.
Sarah King: [00:40:13] I did my first air cover claim. It was great.
Annette Grant: [00:40:15] No, let’s walk us. Listen, our listeners want to know all these things are talk. So it was a–
Sarah King: [00:40:19] This is now the horror story podcast.
Annette Grant: [00:40:21] No, it’s okay. So we’re keeping it real. So go through this midterm guest. How long was their initial booking? Let’s go through the details.
Sarah King: [00:40:29] I think it was two and one half or three months. That’s pretty normal in our market. She said she was a travel nurse, had one five-star review, had no red flags, a picture of herself in her bio. From what you can tell, Airbnb makes me nervous because I love a background check on my long-term tenants and so I’m still getting comfortable with like–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:40:47] You can still do background checks.
Sarah King: [00:40:48] A one five-star review, we should talk about that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:40:51] You can still do that, I don’t trust them either. So it’s okay. Go ahead.
Sarah King: [00:40:54] Yeah. So essentially you have very minimal information to go off of and that’s how you’re making decisions. And yes, I guess you can always do more checks, but I feel like that’s not normal in our market. And it’s really competitive for these one-bedroom nights right now. So for better or worse, I’m like, yeah, I got a booking. Bad idea.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:41:14] I get that though.
Sarah King: [00:41:14] I literally never saw it coming. And so I got a call– no, I got a text. I was out of town. Everything went wrong when I was out of town. So a guest at my house knows when I’m gone. I was in Orlando on a work trip. And I got a call from the neighbor being like, “Who did you move into your place across the street? It sure is interesting being across the road from your property.”
Annette Grant: [00:41:35] Oh, red flags. Oh, no.
Sarah King: [00:41:38] And so apparently on a Sunday evening, the female guest and her boyfriend who actually knew he was coming, I just didn’t have his information because it’s an Airbnb booking and it just says two guests that I didn’t ask a lot, which is a mistake. So ask more questions and at least get the other person’s name. So these are things I’ve learned the hard way. So apparently they went out and drinking. She stayed at a bar talking to some guy. He got really angry, came back, and took out all of his aggression on my property.
Annette Grant: [00:42:08] Because his name wasn’t associated with at all.
Sarah King: [00:42:10] No. So his name wasn’t on it at all. And so he went in, was like very drunk, broke through a door. I have videos and stuff on Instagram you can go through. And Taylor Swift just dropped her new albums and all of them were like, done to Taylor Swift songs like All My Water’s.
Annette Grant: [00:42:29] So Good.
Sarah King: [00:42:30] So it’s around that time era for anyone that wants to go back and scroll back in time and look at it. It wasn’t that long ago. And so he broke through the door, broke the bed, throw hangers. They also stole stuff, which I was really confused by. I was like a feel of rage, but also don’t steal my things. The luggage rack was gone. They took all the towels, just weird, weird things.
Annette Grant: [00:42:52] All right, so how did you handle that? So you get this text, you see that this has happened? What were your steps with Airbnb? And then can you talk about us actually getting that cover reimbursement?
Sarah King: [00:43:03] Yeah. So the neighbor let me know that the police took him away. It was that bad because he was out in the street. It was a police-level involvement. And so first I was just trying to find details of the story because the neighbor is a little unique. And so I’m like, I just want to put together the right pieces before I contact Airbnb so I don’t sound like a crazy person.
So I end up calling the police department and I was like, “Hey, I have a tenant at this address. Did you have any issues last night? What can you tell me?” And so the police said there was a disturbance at whatever address and he called the police on himself and he told them, I’m relapsing. Can you come get me?
Annette Grant: [00:43:37] Oh, no. So maybe it was mental health. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sarah King: [00:43:40] Yeah. But he ended up saying it was an alcohol relapse and they recommended AA for him. I know this because he left all his discharge paperwork. It must be confidential. But yeah, so they took him to the hospital and hopefully he got the help he needed and I hope he’s doing better, but definitely like an alcohol abuse situation. I was excited it wasn’t like a drug abuse situation because I’m like, that would be a new level of, I don’t know, cleaning and investigation in the property.
So once I figured out that, I contacted Airbnb and I said like, listen, the police were involved last night. My tenant destroyed the property. I really don’t go back in because it’s like mid-booking. Can you please message them? I’ve tried to reach out and first I asked the woman, “Are you okay? Are you doing okay? Is your pet okay? They had a dog and like, how is he doing?” And she’s like, “We’re all home and it’s okay.” Okay, great. “Well, I’m going to need to end your stay, but Airbnb will reach out.”
And so I talked to Airbnb about how to handle that and they actually reached out to the guest and work with them to get them out. And I think it took two days.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:44:40] Okay. And she left peacefully.
Sarah King: [00:44:41] And she left peacefully.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:44:42] Okay, well, all right.
Annette Grant: [00:44:44] But did they reimburse you for the rest of the stay?
Sarah King: [00:44:47] They did. But it took a lot of messages and calls and a lot of messages and calls. Getting the actual insurance coverage was probably somewhat cumbersome because I just over-documented everything and had like 10 pictures of each item. And I think the poor claims person was probably like uncle–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:45:06] By insurance, do you mean your actual home insurance? Are you talking about air cover?
Sarah King: [00:45:10] Air cover. So air cover reimbursed for all the damages and new dishes and things because they had clearly thrown glasses and plates in the kitchen.
Annette Grant: [00:45:17] Did you have your original receipts for the stuff that you purchased?
Sarah King: [00:45:21] Mm-hmm.
Annette Grant: [00:45:21] Okay. So, listeners, she’s giving some key stuff out there that she had the original receipts for the stuff that was broken and then also multiple, multiple pictures of each item too.
Sarah King: [00:45:33] Yeah. And so I usually do a bulk order when I furnish a property, and I do one giant order from Target, one giant order from Walmart, one giant like order from HomeGoods or something like that, and usually have a giant receipt and that’s pretty helpful.
So a lot of the things they broke were like dishware, which I do mostly at Target and so that was pretty simple and then bedding and things. So yeah, lots of receipts. So I could at least tell them where I got each item because they just furnished it. It was my first guest in that exact thing. And so I was like, well, nicely I have all these receipts right here. Let me just send them to you.
Annette Grant: [00:46:09] As we wrap up this episode, can you tell our listeners how do you bounce back mentally from that? That’s rough and that makes you want to throw in the towel. So what was the conversations you were having with yourself as you’re getting these texts when you were on this work trip? You’re the person taking care of all of this stuff. I just want to know, how do you bounce back? How you are like, all right, let’s do this. Because you just said it’s a lot of time and back and forth too with Airbnb trying to get all the money reimbursed. What’s your trick there?
Sarah King: [00:46:36] There’s time management tricks and mental tricks, I feel like. So from a time management standpoint, I do my best work, before my day job starts or after my job and like the evening when my daughter goes to bed. And so in the evening, I’d be like, tonight I yell at me. So no, that is how I spent my evenings.
Annette Grant: [00:46:53] So you compartmentalize and say, “This is what I’m going to do.”
Sarah King: [00:46:55] So you time block and compartmentalize dealing with it. And you have to because you can’t just like, dwell on it all day and you have to still function and get things done. The other thing is I really don’t work on any of my own properties anymore. I used to paint, I used to do drywall repairs, and pretty much no matter what, I’m going to send people in.
So I was either in Orlando or Chicago, I can’t remember. I travel for work. So me being far away didn’t really make a difference other than you want to see what happened in person. But either way, I’m going to send people to the house to do an assessment, take pictures, do all of that. I ended up coming home the same week and I took my picture myself. But I have a team on the ground to do that because in theory I’m building my portfolio so I can work from anywhere.
And so that was really important is like having people to like, I text Peter to be like, hey, I need a new door in this unit. And you text so-and-so to like, but a lot of the shopping and the buying, all the stuff was all me. And then, I don’t know, just mentally, I feel like when I walk in a unit most of the time and do a walk-through, I’m like, oh my gosh, they left it in such great shape. I’m always surprised because I feel like I’ve had so many not-great things happen over the years and you just see how people live that when you find good people and they keep it nice, I’m pleasantly surprised.
I think people go into real estate the opposite. They’re like terrified of something bad happening. And I’m like, surprised when things are good. I don’t know what that says about me as a person, but you just like, prepare always for the worst and you’re like, wow, this is nice. My cleaner will have such a good day today.
So I don’t know, just having realistic expectations of you know things will get broken and that’s part of the whole process. You don’t want it to happen. And obviously, I need to learn some things from my Airbnb screening that was subpar. But you can’t always screen.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:48:36] But even when you do screenings–
Sarah King: [00:48:38] Like you just–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:48:39] Even when you screen–
Annette Grant: [00:48:41] Things happen. Even when you screen sometimes we have some bad days.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:48:44] Yeah. All listeners to give themselves grace too of like listen, you can also be the most prepared person and things will still happen. And I’m with you Sarah, where I expect everything to be terrible. So it’s good, I’m very excited. But I also do I have intense anxiety when it comes to how am I going to overcome from something bad happening, which is both is good and it’s bad because then you live with constant anxiety.
Sarah King: [00:49:07] I was handling it really well until for some reason when they had stolen things like my metal laundry hampers that I found at some little cute store–
Annette Grant: [00:49:16] You snapped.
Sarah King: [00:49:16] I felt like the red fog is falling down where I’m like, I was fine with that happen. This is doing business. It’s the cost of doing business. And I’m like those assholes. I’m reasonably mad. And I’m like, why was it the laundry hamper?
Annette Grant: [00:49:32] It just was it.
Sarah King: [00:49:33] I don’t know. It’s just like you all. Everyone has a thing and I’m like, I’m going to walk away for a minute. I’m going to come back tomorrow and we’re going to start again. It’s a new day. And you just get up with a new mindset to keep going.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:49:45] You are one strong lady, Sarah. No, you really are. To go through the life change that you went through with your ex-husband and being a single mom and building your wealth and working a full-time job and being both you, me, and that–
Annette Grant: [00:50:01] A designer, a GC.
Sarah King: [00:50:02] Yeah.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:50:03] And we still love real estate because that’s how amazing it truly is and how powerful it is and how our good guests really do outweigh and outshine the challenging situations. So are you going to get more mid-term rentals, Sarah?
Sarah King: [00:50:16] That is the goal. I think my plan for the next year or so is to stay in the day job. And so I actually just hired a management company to help me with my guest communication because I feel like when I’m traveling more, my job has been getting a little busier and I don’t want my response time to drop because right now I have a five-star rating and I’m going to do everything.
I know you get bad reviews yet, but I’m like, I’m going to do everything and stay on top of that as much as I can. And I know with my travel coming up this spring, it’s going to be really hard to do that. And so I’m like, I need to have someone give a better guest experience so I can do more acquisitions and add to the portfolio and maybe decorate something else. So that’s the fun part.
Annette Grant: [00:51:00] All right. I gave away some of your stuff earlier, but where is the best place for them to follow along on all these escapades?
Sarah King: [00:51:07] So I spend all of my time pretty much on Instagram. It’s outrageous how my screen time is allotted to Instagram, but I’m under NerdsGuideToFI, so financial independence. And so you can find me on there. I do have my own website. I have some courses. So if you’re afraid of screening long-term tenants, I have some stuff on that on my website, but I have a little blog. I had a little baby podcast that I’m neglected for the last year and just some other things, but it’s all under the same name, so it’s very easy. So just Google or on Instagram NerdsGuideToFI and you’ll find it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:51:36] You should do a course on time management because I don’t know how you do all this. Like being a mum–
Annette Grant: [00:51:38] Forget about Instagram stuff.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:51:40] Yeah, I don’t know how you do it, but kudos to you. Thanks so much for your time here on our podcast. Sarah, I know our listeners are going to have a lot of questions for you. Maybe some–
Sarah King: [00:51:49] Yeah, please do. I still answer all of my own DMS, so please ask me stuff. It’s fun.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:51:54] Great. Well with, that I am Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:51:57] I am Annette Grant and together we are–
Both Annette & Sarah: [00:51:59] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:52:00] We’ll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. Head on over to the show notes for additional information about today’s episode. And please, hit that subscribe button and leave us a review. Awesome reviews help us bring you awesome content. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to hanging out with you next week.
